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“We’re bringing mutual aid to the 21st century,” said Jeff Dulin, strategic adviser at IAFC. “The WebEOC part of it is the data, and the Esri part of it is the mapping.”
Previously, fire officials would have lists of assets, but they wouldn’t know where those resources were located. “Now you’ll see that visually on a map, so you can see how close they are, how far away, how long it will take them to get there,” Dulin said.
SPEEDING ACCESS TO PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT To use NMAS, fire agencies register with IAFC, which grants them access to the tool. They enter their inventories into the system manually or through WebEOC’s batch import process. The data format is based on the National In- cident Management System, which stan- dardizes equipment types nationwide, giving stakeholders common definitions and processes for their mutual aid plan- ning, according to the Federal Emergen- cy Management Agency. This means that a fire official can query NMAS for a Type I engine, and every fire service in the country knows what that means.
Once the resources are entered, the Esri component automatically geocodes them. When officials query the system for resources, they receive a map show- ing locations and a list ranked nearest to farthest. Users can query by distance, time to delivery, category and resource. Additionally, they can plot the best route for resource loaners to use. Individual fire agencies can also manage their in- ventories via the system.
“We’re using accepted nomenclatures, protocols and classifications from exist- ing systems that have been put in place by FEMA, \[Department of\] Homeland Security and the Forest Service,” said Cy Cole, director of federal business devel- opment at Intermedix.
Additionally, 44 state emergency man- agement agencies and FEMA already use WebEOC.
During California’s recent natural di- sasters, responders relied on an older system with few GIS components. In their letter, the fire managers asked for “revenue to modernize the effective, but aging, Mutual Aid System to include rap- id resource processing and ordering, in- cident logistical support, and command and control functions at local public safe- ty communications centers.”
If first responders had had access to something like NMAS last year, Dulin said, “they would have been able to visu- alize the resources that were available, and they could see where they were.” That would have helped them “speed up
“The intent
is that the system itself will facilitate resource management” across disciplines.
RYAN LANCLOS, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY INDUSTRIES, ESRI
the whole process of making a request both to a resource owner and then get- ting a resource deployed to that event.”
Cole said resource requests and fulfill- ments can take up to two days — far too long when wildfires are involved.
MORE COSTLY AND COMPLEX DISASTERS
Although the idea of mutual aid isn’t new, it has been a challenge for fire de- partments, said Ryan Lanclos, director of public safety industries at Esri. “There’s never been a national system...for fire
service\[s\] to share and access mutual aid information,” he added.
“In 2017, the amount of disasters that we faced in the U.S. and the cost of those disasters reflect how complex and how costly they were not just monetarily, but for our environment, infrastructure and the people who were impacted directly,” Lanclos said. “Those hurricane examples and flooding examples are just perfect use cases” that show how NMAS can help first responders get faster access to the resources they need.
Cole said the ultimate goal is great- er efficiency. “Let’s be really clear: All NMAS is is really just a system to help make it easier for all the fire agencies to do what they’ve been doing for years,” he said. “We’re going to help them expand the scope and the reach of mutual aid in the country.”
Another benefit of the system will be data analytics, he added. Making and ful- filling requests generate data that can be used to facilitate the reimbursement pro- cess, for example. “You don’t expect the fire departments to send those million- dollar trucks and all those firefighters for free,” Cole said.
IAFC will soon launch a three-month beta test of NMAS in California, Florida, Tennessee and Utah. Dulin said the full system should be up and running this summer. NMAS is open to states and individual jurisdictions, with a subscrip- tion fee based on the size of the area.
Ultimately, the system will be expand- ed for use by any public safety agency, Lanclos said. “The intent is that the sys- tem itself will facilitate resource manage- ment” across disciplines. It could be used by law enforcement as well as emergency management and provide insights into “logistical resources for food, water and thelike,”headded.
“That’s the long-term vision,” Lanclos said. “The National Mutual Aid System will eventually be tested and proven in its capacity here, and then we’ll start to branch out into other segments of public safety.” •
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